


what was lost

by deadcellredux



Category: Final Fantasy VI
Genre: Backstory, Canon Fuckery, Final Fantasy Kiss Battle, Magitek, Mental Disintegration, Meta, Needles, Other, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-11 21:02:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1177894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadcellredux/pseuds/deadcellredux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before her eyes, he is changing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what was lost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vrazdova](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vrazdova/gifts).



> Written for the [2014 Final Fantasy Kiss Battle](http://ff-exchange.dreamwidth.org/47675.html).

At first, Celes notices what seem to be inconsequential changes in Kefka; though he is quite clearly  _present_  behind all operations of the Empire, he seems concurrently to be fading, slowly, into focused isolation. Clues show themselves in strange bits and pieces of disarray; Kefka often speaks in riddles, now, and his previously pristine quarters have become a disheveled packrat’s hovel. Today, he is wearing mismatched footwear. His eyes, once sharp and bright, seem to dull and hollow further by the day.  
  
Celes--just newly seventeen--has proven herself to be the youngest and most efficient ( _deadly_ ) General the Empire has seen as of yet. The assault on Maranda was almost flawless; Celes, though respected, can hear the whispers throughout the ranks of her men, how it was almost  _too easy_ , how the god-like power of Magitek is beginning to strike stray chords of apprehension, how she is secretly a monster. Terrifying.  _Inhuman_.  
  
“They’re frightened of you,” Kefka says, his voice soft and faintly melodic, and Celes knows that he’s referring to her soldiers, and not the test subjects surrounding them.   
  
They’re in Lab #03-205B of Vector’s Magitek Facility, making small talk in isolation after having been administered a follow-up treatment of the very infusion which first gave them their powers. Celes’ forearm aches where the injection was delivered; she absently slides her fingers over the bandage there. They’re surrounded by specimens here; glass and liquid and body parts make up a veritable mausoleum of Espers, silent save for the faint bubbling of preservative liquid and the quiet humming of machinery.   
  
Celes feels drawn to these disembodied pieces; feels an odd, thrumming pity. She places a hand against the cold glass of a holding tank; the specimen inside is dead, preserved in viscous, cloudy liquid. “Is it strange that I care more for these creatures,” she asks--in somewhat of a response to his statement-- “than I do for human life?”  
  
Kefka laughs, quiet and hollow. “Is it stranger still that I care nothing at all for either?”  
  
Celes looks at Kefka’s reflection in the glass. He stands behind her, a half-smile on his face, strands of loose hair falling messy from his ponytail. Even in the reflection she can see the dark circles under his eyes, the red where he’s rimmed them with some sort of paint.  
  
“So silly,” he continues, “to be concerned with life so trivial.” He steps closer to lean his head in close to hers, squinting to scrutinize the shapes within the glass before them. His body heat floods her space, and the unsettling, unfamiliar feeling makes Celes feel  _smothered_  and yet strangely  _comforted_  at once.   
  
“You see  _all_  life that way?” she asks.  
  
“Of course, my dear.”  
  
Celes turns from the reflection to face the real, breathing, uncanny flesh of him.   
  
“You and I—are we not human, to you?”  
  
He laughs, and Celes flinches, for now it’s a bit too loud.   
  
“You and I,” Kefka says, “are  _more_  than human.  _Better_  than, in fact. Don’t forget that, Celes. Don’t let them make you forget that.”  
  
Celes feels a chill in her gut as she realizes that yes, he is gone. If not gone, he is leaving, slowly but surely, by way of whatever mad science or misguided magic or  _Esper curse_  has wrought. She’s already heard the rumors about him, always has, and Cid has always told her that she’s  _different_ , that she’s not just an  _experiment gone wrong_. She wonders, now, if anyone at all can see that he is dangerous. If anyone else would try to take hold of what lingering humanity may be within him, to put those pieces back together instead of trying to further deconstruct them with infusions, experiments, trials to see  _what else he can become_.  
  
She feels a strange urge to connect with the familiar, to keep it close to her even as it slips away before her eyes. She can remember the Kefka she knew as a child, sharp and intelligent and optimistic, fresh-faced and so  _willing_  to give himself over to the cause, the movement to  _bring back magic_. She was a child, then, frightened of needles and big, cold machines, and Kefka had comforted her, assured her that it would all be alright, that she’d be _strong_  one day.  
  
Celes knows little of magic and fairy tales; she knows enough, however, to not expect a happy ending.  
  
She leans in to press a kiss, hard and quick, against the corner of his mouth. His skin is cold, clammy. He is now a shadow of what she once knew, and she wonders if he will ever be the same. She wonders if  _she_  will be the same, or if she will one day change, like him.  
  
Her arm aches where the needle punctured her.   
  
"Please," she says to him, "do not change." She keeps her voice from wavering, keeps her eyes on the floor for but a moment before looking up to meet his own.  
  
“And you as well,” he says, and the corner of his mouth twitches up into a crooked half-smile as he stares, blankly, straight through her.


End file.
